


Through a Glass

by toli-a (togina)



Category: Justified
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-18 19:02:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20196544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togina/pseuds/toli-a
Summary: Have they always been like this?





	Through a Glass

**Author's Note:**

> bestillmyslashyheart prompted: I'd love to see the marshalls commiserating with the people of Harlan about all the Boyd/Raylan nonsense. Maybe get a conversation like have they always been like this?? And so have them all at the Crowder bar in some nebulous moment in season 3 after they take back the bar and before Devil goes down.

Raylan invites them all out for a drink. Tim says yes, because it’s been a hell of a boring day, and he suspects all his ennui is due to Raylan being out of commission, either from his gut wound or any head injury he may have sustained when he and Boyd Crowder brawled their way through a glass wall days before.

He’s not sure why Rachel says yes, but he suspects it’s the ravenous curiosity she attempts to hide behind disregard. After all, Raylan’s never invited them anywhere before. Art says, “Why the hell not,” for reasons even Tim can’t fathom, because Art’s known Raylan for years, has no doubt solved all the mysteries hidden under Raylan’s brim.

They all load into Raylan’s borrowed sedan, and Tim doesn’t think to question where they’re going until Raylan pulls onto I-75.

“I thought you said a quick drink?” Art says, speaking for them all.

Raylan tips his hat a little further back on his head. In the rearview mirror, Tim thinks he catches a glimpse of Raylan’s fleeting smile. “I never said quick,” he disagrees, pulling into the left lane. “I said I knew where they poured the best bourbon in Kentucky, and you climbed right in.”

When it becomes clear that no one in the car has a rejoinder, Raylan reaches over and flips on the radio, and they spend the next two and a half hours listening to eighties pop.

It’s Harlan, because of course it is. Raylan takes them more than halfway across the state to a dry city in a damp county for a goddamned drink.

“Is this legal?” Rachel wonders, steps out of the car and peers dubiously at the rundown building beyond.

“You looking to arrest someone?” Raylan responds, the neon twinkling in his eyes, glinting off the edges of something that might be a smile.

He ushers them through the open door into the dark confines of the bar beyond. Rachel draws her gun and Tim considers drawing his and someone laughs at their discomfort, but Tim can’t tell who it is.

“You brought us to Boyd Crowder’s bar?” Art asks, in that tone of voice that makes Tim hang his head and scuff his feet along the floor.

“Now, Chief Deputy Mullen, I’ll have you know this bar is under the proprietorship of my cousin Johnny, and Raylan wasn’t to know, as the fortuitous repossession of this establishment occurred only this afternoon.”

“You’re saying you stole a bar?” Rachel paraphrases, aiming above the bar and somewhere at Boyd Crowder’s ribs. Tim blinks twice, lets his eyes adjust to the dark, and he can make out Boyd and Ava behind the bar with someone he recognizes as Boyd’s man Devil, Johnny Crowder in front of it in his wheelchair with a shotgun and a drink.

“I’m implying nothing of the sort,” Boyd tells her. “I am merely stating that you have arrived just in time to join us for the jubilee. Devil, pour us all a round to celebrate, on the house.”

“You pouring Elmer’s?” Raylan butts in, crossing over to where Boyd’s standing, scaring some young, impressionable drinker off his bar stool. “Or are we supposed to drink whatever rotgut your associate pulls out of the well?”

Boyd’s grin glows brighter than the neon in the dim light. He leans over the bar, and Rachel has to lower her gun or risk shooting Raylan. “Why Raylan Givens, do you doubt my largess?”

“What makes you think we have Elmer’s?” Ava asks, folding her arms, but neither man pays her any heed.

Boyd waves a hand at Devil, who reluctantly fetches a bottle off the top shelf and glasses from under the bar. Art sits down across from Ava with a paternal smile, and Rachel holsters her gun and glowers at Devil from her bar stool, leaving Tim to sit next to Johnny Crowder or stand.

Tim’s too busy watching Devil pour—he’s sure the man would prefer to shoot them than poison them, but just in case—to pay much attention to the end of the bar. Boyd chortles, and Tim jumps.

“Are you insinuating, Raylan, that I ain’t improved in twenty years?”

“I’m saying I’ve no evidence to the contrary,” Raylan retorts, and for a just a moment, Tim is sure they’re talking about -

“Well, come on then,” Boyd tells him, stepping out from behind the bar, and Tim holds his breath, watching, waiting for - “Unless you’re scared?”

“You gonna keep talking, Boyd?” Raylan asks, doesn’t lean away when Boyd moves into his space. “Or are we gonna play pool?”

The two men walk over to the table in the corner, talking too low to hear. Boyd’s man drops a glass of bourbon in front of Tim, startles him into exhaling, and the noise of the bar rushes back in, country music from the jukebox and the chatter of patrons and the ice clinking in Johnny Crowder’s glass.

“Do you think they need a chaperone?” Rachel asks, eyeing her bourbon with suspicion. “You know, in case Crowder decides to start another fight?”

Johnny snorts, tips his glass up and crunches down on a piece of ice. “They ain’t gonna fight,” he says, adjusting his ball cap. “And even if they did, Raylan’s always been able to take Boyd.”

“I wish he’d take him to jail,” Art announces honestly, though only Devil seems to mind. “Instead of setting him loose every time.”

“Maybe Boyd don’t belong in jail,” Ava suggests, pouring herself another round and topping off Art’s glass.

“Raylan doesn’t seem to think so,” Rachel mutters. “It’s like he forgets they’re on opposite sides.”

Tim raises his eyebrows, takes a fortifying gulp of his free drink. “They aren’t even on opposite sides of that pool table,” he tells Rachel, gesturing to the corner where Raylan’s bent awkwardly over the table, trying to shoot without aggravating his wounded side, and Boyd’s near enough to jostle Raylan’s arm with his hip, saying something he finds hilarious and stealing a swallow from Raylan’s drink.

“They dug coal together,” Ava tells them, like she’s imparting some wisdom they don’t all already know, like the words mean something different in Harlan, incanted over a glass of expensive bourbon in an illegal bar.

“If they hadn’t, we could have shot the marshal when he first came sniffing around,” Devil says, exasperation clear in his voice, and he sounds too annoyed for Tim to bother to take offense on Raylan’s behalf.

At his end of the bar, Johnny Crowder laughs, shakes his head and gazes at them all with something resembling Rachel’s usual disdain. “Man, you all don’t know shit,” he says, still chuckling, looks over his shoulder to where Raylan and Boyd Crowder appear to be facing off, Boyd’s hand wrapped around the end of Raylan’s pool cue.

“And do you plan to enlighten us?” Rachel inquires, regaining Johnny’s attention from Raylan and Boyd.

Johnny leans back, puffs out his chest and tries to smile with the braggadocio his cousin conjures with ease. “No, Miss Lady Marshal, I don’t think that I will. Let’s just say this ain’t the first game of pool that Boyd and Raylan have played.”

They all swivel to stare at the two men, again, but there’s nothing to see: Boyd’s leaning forward to take his shot, and Raylan’s sipping top-shelf bourbon and tapping his fingers to the rhythm of a jukebox song.

They’ve played pool before, Tim thinks, and maybe it’s the bourbon that makes him wonder, maybe it’s the neon and the darkness and -

“Anybody here rooting for the Colts?” Ava queries, gesturing at the TV, and it’s nothing but a game in a poorly lit bar run by criminals, it’s good bourbon in a suspect glass, it’s the Colts versus the Chargers in a different sort of round. Tim sips his bourbon, and he watches the game.


End file.
